


Looking for Mozart

by SoundOfHerWings



Category: Mozart l'Opéra Rock - Mozart/Baguian & Guirao
Genre: Gen, Historical Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 01:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11003538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoundOfHerWings/pseuds/SoundOfHerWings
Summary: ‘Let me take you to him – to find Mozart!’ The dead musician exclaimed, as if he just got the most delightful idea.





	Looking for Mozart

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [寻找莫扎特](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/293436) by 衣十三. 



> Translator's (My) Note: This is originally in Chinese, translated and posted with the permission of the author (衣十三). 
> 
> Original Author’s Note: Inspired by my convo with @ModestBreeze. In retrospect it turned out very much like what they were talking about, and I am very embarrassed. I shall tag them here.

‘Salieri.’ In the darkness, someone was calling his name. ‘Maestro Salieri.’

Salieri opened his eyes and found Mozart standing at the foot of his bed. Everything looked as it always was, and yet different: the Austrian appeared so youthful he could almost be called a boy. His blonde hair was a mess, a golden mist on top of his head and the funeral clothes they dressed him in hang quite loosely around his body.

‘Mozart.’ Salieri blinks. The name echoes in the air around him. ‘Why are you still here?’

Mozart tilted his head: ‘Should I not be?’

‘I thought…’ Salieri breathed in deeply, and breathed out. ‘…I thought you were gone .’

Mozart chuckled. It was a sad sort of chuckle. Salieri didn’t remember him chuckling like that when he was still alive, but his voice was still bubbly. ‘I didn’t go anywhere, Antonio. I am right here in Vienna.’

‘Then I must have lost you somewhere.’ Salieri stared at him blankly. ‘I have lost you and I cannot find you anymore.’

‘Is that why you’ve got yourself like this?’ The blonde musician said, gently running his fingers through his hair, brushing against the top of his ear, touching his cheekbones, as if he’s petting a stray puppy. ‘Closing yourself in… Not going outside, not laughing, not loving, not hating...’

Salieri shook his head, not understanding what he meant. He did go outside, just yesterday morning, and he had met with the emperor.

Mozart shook his head too, and tapped his hand against his heart, ‘You locked yourself in here.’ Wide eyes stare intently at him, sad and understanding. What does he understand? Salieri thought. He doesn’t know anything at all.

‘I know all of it.’ Mozart said. ‘But that is not your fault. Even if it is, I have forgiven you a long time ago!’

Salieri avoided those bright eyes, and instead he said: ‘I went into the emperor’s study, I passed by your house, I visited every opera house, but you weren’t there. You weren’t there with them.’

‘No, Antonio. I have always been here, in Vienna.’ Mozart insisted, ‘You’ve been looking in all the wrong places.’

He paused, and then made a noise as if he just got the most delightful idea. ‘Let me take you to him – to find Mozart!’

He hadn’t even processed what he had said before the blonde musician grabbed his hand and gestured him to stand up. His hands were too young, with long, slender fingers, soft and without much force at all. Holding his hand was like being led by a small lamb.

Salieri didn’t want to. He didn’t want to go anywhere. All he wanted is to look at the person before him for a bit longer. But those gentle, even feeble, hands convinced him.

Those hands led him through his own house.

Salieri had chosen all the furniture himself. Grace and elegance filled every room, but Mozart didn’t pay any attention. They passed through the walls silently, as easily as a breeze passing through a translucent veil. Salieri closed his eyes and smelled wood and moss.

They walked into the night of Vienna.

They passed through Salieri’s garden (where irises and jasmines bloomed quietly around Mozart’s steps), shuffled through a crowded opera house (as Mozart’s Don Juan was playing), stepped through the stately palace of the emperor, walked through the luxuriously adorned church, pranced through the brilliantly lit dance halls. Salieri frequented these places. He saw one familiar face after another in the crowds, but no one could see him. People busied themselves in their own affairs, as if they were in an exhibition, practising their rehearsed smiles (such is the way of people, and Salieri is one of them).

Mozart disregarded them as well, and passed effortlessly through the crowd like a prince, and people parted before him. Salieri followed, enjoying the same ease of passage. The prince walked and looked back at him. In his eyes gleamed the fire and the moon. ‘Look, I am not among them, just like you are not among them.’

Salieri tried to protest, seeking his own face in the crowd, but the people had already left. He stopped, not knowing what to do. He glanced back at the lights of the city, and found himself not the least bit nostalgic of them.

Mozart tugged on him, and so Salieri nodded. They walked on, surrounded by the murmuring mist in the streets, leaving the places of light and grandeur. Mozart was still holding his hand.

‘Why are you taking me here?’ Salieri couldn’t help asking. They were standing in the middle of a deserted path. The fog was getting thick.

‘Because I am here, look - ’ Mozart straightened up and opened his arms wide: ‘I walked into Vienna’s embrace through this road.’ He winked: ‘And this is the road they carried my coffin on, towards my grave.’

Salieri opened his mouth to speak, but Mozart shook his head at him. He was still smiling – not a small polite smile, but the kind of smile that’s not too dignified, showing almost all his teeth, the smile that forgave everything. It’s Mozart’s smile. What could Salieri say to that face? He just let him hold on to his hands.

They followed the winding road amidst the night breeze and soft mist. Mozart was in high spirits, he pointed to things here and there as he walked, giving colour and shape to the grey blur of fog.

‘Look, Antonio, I am here.’ He pointed at an old shack that was falling apart, ‘I was dancing here… Stop looking at me like that! Granted I was drunk, but I still charmed all those girls.’

‘I am also here.’ He pointed at a crooked alley. ‘I lost Karl’s milk money here.’

‘I’m here.’ He pointed at a frail-looking tree in a street park, ‘I kissed Constance on the lips for the first time here.’

‘I am here.’ He pointed at some scattered wildflowers, ‘I sat waiting for a sunrise with these lovely flowers once – have you seen a sunrise in Vienna? It’s not Milan, but you should see it anyway!’

‘Of course I am also here.’ He gestured at a drunkard stumbling by (he was humming the overture to Die Zauberflöte), ‘I’m forever here in his happiness.’

‘Ah. And also here.’ He pointed at a house and stopped abruptly. From the darkened windows they heard a widow’s sign. The mist in Mozart’s eyes shifted and condensed into a drop of water. ‘I am here… forever here in her grief.’

Salieri stood beside him. He suddenly had the urge to touch Mozart’s eyelids: Are they wet? Or would they be dry? Are they warm or cold? But he didn’t move at all. He relegated all the possibilities to the back of his head.

Is it a magician that’s standing before him? Salieri wondered, when did these places appear in Vienna? How come he never even noticed them before Mozart waved his arms and directed his eyes?

As though he read his mind, Mozart stopped gesticulating. His arms hang timidly at his sides. ‘Alright, now you have to search for yourself – the real Vienna is much bigger than you’ve ever imagined. Come and find me, Antonio! Stop your self-imposed punishment and come outside.’ The blonde musician winked at him, ‘You will run into me quite often. Promise.’

‘What about now?’ Salieri enquired, ‘are you leaving again?’

‘Yes, Antonio, I have to.’ Mozart answered, ‘But why would that make a difference? I will always be here.’

Salieri hadn’t thought of a reply before the blonde musician changed his mind and exclaimed, ‘Oh, oh, I almost forgot! Please come with me to this one last place.’ He stared at Salieri with his puppy eyes, ‘I swear, you’ll love it, I promise!’

What could Salieri say to that?

So they kept on walking for a little, and stopped at a secluded neighbourhood. There was a theatre. It was old, cramped, dark, dirty, and falling apart, as if it had grown crookedly out of the wild fields. How would anyone want to see an opera here? Salieri frowned. But in the theatre there was quite a clamour coming from the tiny venue. Die Entführung aus dem Serail was playing.

Mozart didn’t speak, so Salieri listened attentively for a little while. His brows furrowed. The obscure soprano has gotten three notes wrong in the last two minutes.

‘It’s rather awful.’ He tried his best to give an unbiased comment.

‘It is rather awful.’ Mozart agreed. He tutted, and was shaking his head around as if he was amused by that notion. ‘But this is where I met you, and where you met me.’

‘I didn’t just meet you,’ Salieri couldn’t help but say, ‘I got to know you here for the first time.’

And hated you for the first time, and loved you for the first time, and got to know you for the first time. It had all been here and it had all been in the music. It had begun at the third note.

‘Yes, yes, my dear Antonio, my good maestro, no one knows me better than you.’ Mozart said and raised both arms, like he was about to turn into a wild goose and fly away, or maybe give him a hug. He looked at Salieri earnestly, and said again: ‘Please come and find me. Say yes, Antonio, say that you will come.’

Salieri looked at him, speechless, he was vaguely confused.

Why? He asked himself. _He should hate him._

Mozart waited quietly. He didn’t get impatient when no reply came from Salieri, but instead he twirled around on tiptoes. As he was spinning, he seemed to shrink in height. He looked impossibly young. Salieri gaped: is the Mozart before him eleven? Maybe ten?

‘What are you doing?’ He asked, feeling dizzy in his surprise.

‘I thought you would like me better like this?’ Mozart blinked, his chubby face showed a childlike maturity. ‘They seem to have liked me better as a child.’

‘That can’t be true.’ Salieri pondered for a while and answered seriously, ‘Regardless of what you look like, people would always love you wholeheartedly.’

‘Yourself included, Antonio?’

‘……’

No. I don’t love you. I hate you, I am jealous of you – he could just say that. How did Salieri answer? Somehow he couldn’t recall. But in the haze of the night, the young Mozart seemed to have smiled (was it a smile?).

It’s inconsequential.

What’s important is that the moon has arisen and the fog has dissipated.

‘I ought to go.’ Mozart told him.

‘Yes. You ought to go.’ Salieri answered.

The tiny Mozart suddenly cleared his throat quietly, as if he got abruptly shy, but also slightly mischievous. ‘… May I ask you to close your eyes?’

‘What for?’ Salieri was unwilling, and thought to himself, _I’d rather look at you a bit longer_.

‘I won’t feel comfortable giving you a kiss if you keep looking at me like that.’ Mozart said. Under the clear moonlight, the child looked up at him with a clear smile.

So Salieri closed his eyes and woke up with a kiss.

//

After that, everyone said that Maestro Salieri had changed. He laughed more, went to pubs occasionally, and even took nightly strolls by himself. He didn’t have a set route, and was often gone for hours at a time. He maintained this habit well into his old age. Whenever anyone asked what he did on these strolls, he smiled tolerantly and mysteriously, and diverted the topic politely. Initially people called him strange, but they soon got used to it.

Years passed, and Salieri never talked about Mozart.

Not until a May day in 1825, when Mr. Salieri, who hadn’t gone out of his room for a long time, suddenly disappeared and caused quite a commotion. His doctor found him in the garden.

‘What do you think you’re doing, Mr. Salieri?’ The doctor asked, dusting off his white hospital overalls with much frustration.

‘I’m looking for Mozart, I always have been.’ The usually taciturn old man broke into a rare smile. He stood in the garden, amidst the blooming flowers, and his trousers were covered in mud. He pointed at something far away behind the doctor: ‘Look, my good doctor, there he comes.’

-FIN-

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading <3 
> 
> Original Author’s Note: I wrote this during a low, so it’s quite a mess and very out of character and not much really. I’m glad you like this story, thank you!
> 
> “He fills my heart/ with very special things/ with Angel songs/ with wild imaginings. /He fills my soul/ with so much love/ that anywhere I go I'm never lonely. /With his love, who could be lonely? ”  
> ——Andrew Williams


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